Speaking at a conference in Copenhagen, Chan said antibiotic resistance could bring about “the end of modern medicine as we know it.”

“We are losing our first-line antimicrobials,” she said Wednesday in her keynote address at the conference on combating antimicrobial resistance. “Replacement treatments are more costly, more toxic, need much longer durations of treatment, and may require treatment in intensive care units.”

Chan said hospitals have become “hotbeds for highly-resistant pathogens” like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, “increasing the risk that hospitalization kills instead of cures.”

Indeed, diseases that were once curable, such as tuberculosis, are becoming harder and more expensive to treat.

Chan said treatment of multidrug resistant tuberculosis was “extremely complicated, typically requiring two years of medication with toxic and expensive medicines, some of which are in constant short supply. Even with the best of care, only slightly more than 50 percent of these patients will be cured.”

Antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella, E. coli, and gonorrhea have also been discovered.

“Some experts say we are moving back to the pre-antibiotic era. No. This will be a post-antibiotic era. In terms of new replacement antibiotics, the pipeline is virtually dry,” said Chan. “A post-antibiotic era means, in effect, an end to modern medicine as we know it. Things as common as strep throat or a child’s scratched knee could once again kill.”

The dearth of effective antibiotics could also make surgical procedures and certain cancer treatments risky or even impossible, Chan said.

“Some sophisticated interventions, like hip replacements, organ transplants, cancer chemotherapy and care of preterm infants, would become far more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake,” she said.

Maybe it is time to go back to Ayurveda for most of our medical issues. Why have bacteria not developed resistance to Ayurvedic medicines for the last 5000 years?

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9 responses to “End of Modern Medicine?”

Thanks to modern medicine the longevity of mankind has increased phenomenally, and in India the life expectancy which was around 32 a century ago has climbed to 68 for men and 70 for women due to allopathy. Alternative medicine can complement modern medicine, but they can never replace modern medicine. It is not uncommon to see the Ayurveda doctor taking allopathy for his own or his dear ones’ health needs. Ms. Chan’s ‘discovery’ is just an impotent rant against modern medicine.

Less than 30 years of longevity with India having the largest number of lepers, blind, insane and malnurished people in the world, before the Brits came. This is recorded history. Things improved a lot under the Brits, but maximum development in the last 30 years of greater medical awareness and equality among people.

Have you read the letters that East India company officials wrote to London between 1750 to 1800? They are still in the national archives in London. They describe a very different India from what you are saying.

Nanu is an idiot. Which recorded history are you talking about? Read Dharam Pal’s “Science and Technology in 18th century India”.You will know the quality of Medicine and Surgery in India. Please, never let your hatred for the Hindus blind your commonsense.

As usual you prove yourself to be a very good missionary agent. Nobody had said anything derogatroy against modern allopathic medicine, however, the question was that howcome this fear is not there in Ayurved of bacteria developing immunity.

It is quite possible that it may not have been studied. But your tone is line with your other previous rants running down everything original of this land.

And my dear, it is not uncommon either to see allopathic doctors turning down their medicines and turning to Ayurved for their cures.

There are limitations to every system of Medicine. Ayurveda is not a substitute for Modern Medicine and will continue to be in use and develop to find cures for our ailments.

Nanu Asari and his ilk would like us to even believe that there was no place called Indian sub-continent before the arrival of Islamic Invaders and European Christian Colonizers. I not able to understand why they came all the way to a “God-foresaken” place like the Indian subcontinent.

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“Why have bacteria not developed resistance to Ayurvedic medicines for the last 5000 years?”
Maybe it is because the bacteria use ayurvedic medicine as food?!
I am not aware that ayurveda cures infections. if an aurvedic medicine ‘cured’ an infection then it is very likely that the problem was not an infection to start with. Which brings us to the reason for this alarming increase in bacterial resistance. It is idiot doctors treating idiot patients (all over the world, the west included) with antibiotics for conditions that will go away without treatment!
dr nair